“Affirm, but my system is AFU!”
Wilson realized they were being jammed, but by what? The Y-8? Probably, but they had to honor the threat fighters first.
Wilson selected his Sidewinder, but, with the Flanker pitching up into him, he couldn’t fish for a seeker-head lock. His HUD and helmet cueing system were a mess and told him nothing except he was being jammed. He retracted his throttles to idle as he approached the merge. Guns!
“Mullet, we’ve gotta engage with guns. Olive, how are you doing over there?”
Before she could answer, Wilson saw the fighter nose-on: two huge intakes and the characteristic big white nose that meant a powerful radar on a big airframe. On one wingtip he detected an ECM pod. With aspect building, he maintained separation for a close pass, and, as he did, saw the white-helmeted pilots looking back at him. Pilots! It was not a J-11 but a naval Su-30, armed with what looked to be PL-12 radar-guided missiles. At the merge, he snap-rolled left and snatched the stick back, a maneuver that prevented the bandit from reversing on top of him.
As Wilson bled airspeed in high-g buffet, he saw the bandit going for Mullet about a half mile in trail. Bright fire burst from the bandit’s gun muzzle, and Wilson saw Mullet roll away from the head-on shot. “Sonofabitch!” someone transmitted.
Olive’s bandit pulled up and in to her, and, to counter, she pulled hard across the bandit’s six—oomph! — which drove her down into her seat as the airframe shook under the sustained g force. Like Wilson’s bandit, the Su-30 then pitched off onto the trailer, Size. Two multiplane engagements were now taking place inside two miles, with armed American noses sweeping one another as they chased after their prey.
Mullet turned hard into the bandit and overshot close. The bandit saw it and reversed high and right, into the same sun that the Americans had used to their advantage moments earlier. With Mullet now in a scissors with the Flanker and unable to break away, Wilson was the free fighter. Back into burner, he reengaged behind Mullet and glanced right. He saw three jets, all gray with twin tails, chasing each other. He picked out the Su-30 going up.
“Olive, you in control over there?”
“A-firm! We’re in the phone booth with this guy! I’m engaged!”
Wilson noted the Su-30 had a big bite on Size, and Olive was pushing the bandit around, 90 degrees off. Both Chinese fighters were now high and in the sun, one in a scissors with Mullet, and the other able to use natural g to bend the nose down and gain even greater angles on young Size. Wilson, however, not leave Mullet in a slow-speed knife fight with the powerful Flanker to help Olive’s section. Wilson called to his wingman and the E-2.
“Mullet, I’ll be there in ten seconds! Lookout, we’re engaged visually with two Su-30s! There’s also a Y-8 around here someplace!”
The E-2 answered and vectored the Sharks in from the north to help, but at over fifty miles away it would be several minutes before they could join the fight, even at a supersonic transit.
Mullet was now high in a tight, rolling scissors with the Flanker. From inside a mile, Wilson saw two glowing burner cans as the big jet pulled back into Mullet. Both pilots were working hard to stop their down-range travel and flush the other out front, but Wilson sensed the bandit had looping airspeed. The bandit took it up in a graceful arc as Mullet knuckled down under heavy buffet. Both flight paths were now predictable, but the Flanker, slowing as it pulled into the top of its loop, was almost stationary against the sky. Wilson cut the corner and pulled lead. His gun sight was jumping all over his HUD, but the combiner glass had a planform full of Su-30.
Brrrrrrppppp!
As the tracers flew out of Wilson’s gun muzzle, he could see they were falling short, and, at that instant, the Flanker pulled over on its back and into him. Now, Wilson was at risk of a nose-on snapshot and rolled away to avoid it. He continued his roll and flew past his adversary inside 500 feet, three human beings looking at each other with a mixture of surprise, fear, and anger.
Fuck!
Mullet had rolled left as Wilson rolled right, and with their eyes locked on the bandit, they were on a collision course. Wilson saw it and pushed the stick to the forward stop as the bottom of Mullet’s Rhino thundered overhead. The roar of his engines in burner permeated the cockpit.
Recovering, Wilson pushed off the canopy rail and stretched his neck up to keep sight as he pulled back in, slamming himself into his seat with a spine-pounding jolt as he went from zero to five g’s. Mullet was now offensive — not knowing how close he had come to a collision — and halfway through his turn, Wilson belly-checked left to see Olive’s fight.
A missile plume was the first thing he saw, and, tracing the smoke, determined it was from the Flanker. Horrified to see a Super Hornet in front of it, he watched the missile fall off in what must have been a desperate out-of-the-envelope shot. Olive yelled for chaff and flares, and when she called in, Wilson saw she was the “high fighter” pulling for guns.
Wilson whipped his head back to Mullet, who was now saddled in. White mist appeared over his nose, and Wilson’s eyes went to the bandit. Flashes burst on its left wing and empennage, soon followed by roiling black smoke.
“Splash the eastern bandit!” Mullet cried out as Wilson continued his barrel roll behind him to watch the burning fighter and pick up Olive’s engagement.
As Wilson scooped down, he saw two flashes from the burning Su-30—ejection sequence — and concentrated on the slow-speed fight in front of him. The bandit squatted his jet to point at Size who was now going up as Olive dove down. Olive had a snapshot and squeezed the trigger from inside 1,000 feet. Unable to avoid it, the Flanker flew through the bullets and exploded. Flaming wreckage cartwheeled out of the fireball.
“Splash the western bandit!” Olive crowed, and Wilson craned his head right to see two green-and-white chutes from the first bandit floating down through the buildups toward the sea 8,000 feet below. Mullet was behind him, a mile at his five-o’clock as Wilson hit MARK several times to record the lat/long coordinates for possible rescue of the enemy aircrew. No chutes were observed from Olive’s kill.
Wilson radioed what happened to the E-2. “Lookout, Snipers. Splash two Flankers. Bogey dope to the Y-8!”
“Roger Snipers, vector south for ten, bogey in a turn through southwest.”
Wilson bumped the castle switch and his radar locked the patrol plane at once. Placing the target box in his HUD, he saw a speck weaving through the buildups. His FLIR sensor identified it as a four-engine patrol aircraft. It was the Y-8, and Wilson accelerated to run it down and shoot it with his Sidewinder. So far, he wasn’t being jammed. “Snipers, bring it southwest, Y-8 on my nose for eight, angels ten.”
Wilson heard Olive acknowledge as he checked his fuel. Min fuel—dammit—and chances were his wingmen had even lower fuel states… no time to help with the SAR of the Chinese pilots. But Wilson could not let this Y-8 get away. Wilson check-turned to sweeten the intercept and called for fuel states. To his right, he saw Olive and Size coming up into spread, and Mullet had crossed under on his left side. Wilson had only Sidewinders on his wingtips, but the rest of his division still had radar missiles on their jets with greater stopping power.